Page:L M Montgomery - Chronicles of Avonlea.djvu/328



R AYTON: A Backwoods My stery By Theodore Qoodridge Roberts

Author of 'A Captain of Raleigh's/' "Comrades of the Trails," etc.

Illustrated by John Qoss. Cloth decorative, net $1 .25; postpaid $1 ,40

Adventure, the exhilaration of outdoor life in settlement and wilderness, mystery, and clear-cut, appealing character- ization are combined in this story in so engrossing and unusual a manner that we feel justified in recommending it.

The scene is the quiet little village of Samson's Mill Settlement, in the backwoods of New Brunswick, and it is around the Harleys, the most important family in the vil- lage, that the story centres. The Harleys boast of a family tradition. Upon three instances of courtship in previous generations the receipt of a playing card marked with three red crosses has forerun disaster.

The family tradition is vividly recalled by James Harley when David Marsh, a prosperous young guide, in love with Nell Harley, receives a card marked with the fatal red crosses during a game of poker in the home of Rayton, a young Englishman who is a newcomer in the settlement.

True to the old tradition, accidents, misfortune and misun- derstandings follow in the wake of the fatal card until the en- tire village is puzzled and apprehensive. Rayton settles down to solve the mystery and at last finds the true solution.

" As a clever spinning of incident out of homespun materials, it must win our sincere admiration; as a novelty in tales of mystery it comes with a pleas- ing sense of surprise and suggests a new kind of possibility in this kind of fiction. It is sincerely and ably written, and sustains a high level from the first page to the last." — The Boston Herald.